Prescriptions for atopic dermatitis: oral corticosteroids remain commonplace.

Introduction: Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a common, chronic inflammatory skin disease characterized by pruritic, often lichenified, patches and plaques.

Methods: Data were obtained from the Humana database, a large claim-based database encompassing more than 20 million patients under a commercial healthcare insurance plan. Our cohort included 39,526 subjects who saw a dermatologist for a primary ICD-9 diagnosis of atopic dermatitis (691.